Beyond this specific project, I think it's worth keeping in mind that Intel probably isn't just shoving money into Israel for no reason (or sketchy geopolitical reasons); the company's history there goes back to the '70s and includes a few major milestones, like the 8088 (which is "just" a cut-down 8086, but was used in the original IBM PC) and the Pentium M (which arguably rescued Intel from its overcommitment to P4/NetBurst by forming the basis of the original Core architecture).
It's baffling to me why all the biggest fabs are built in high risk potential conflict zones. South Korea, Taiwan and Israel. It's terrible capital management if we're going to use those words.
It's a bit of a cliche, but as I live in Brazil I'd say it's mostly true that people living happily at the beach aren't desperate for economical and technical development, and mostly to enjoy daily life and nature. When you're under threats or crisis, technical development seems like a necessity for survival. (There are however, many technical poles in scenic locations in Brazil, like Florianopolis-SC and Ceara).
That said, we should be somewhat worried about desperation-fueled endeavours.
People do crank up a few gears when it's war time or generally threaten of their survivals. After all the original engineering was military engineering then after the rest of engineering or engineering for common causes like building a bridge for civilians are called civil engineering.
For example, Fourier Transform was there but no one use it because it is too slow and there was no urgency to use it until the nuclear testings were common place. In order to detect underground nuclear testing there was an urgency to detect the events using Fourier Transform and voila Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) was invented to speed up it up considerably without loosing the accuracy. Then we have Fast Inverse Fourier Transform and the rest is history.
Another great example was the need for robust command and control (C & C) during the Cold War. US military was looking for C & C infrastructure that can survive nuclear catastrophe and voila the Internet was invented. People keep denying this fact but since it's initially and fully funded by DARPA, it's kind of giving away the main motivations. The basic tenet of the Internet design is essentially to have a highly reliable communication in the face of nearly total or 99% infrastructure destruction. If I can recall correctly someone actually simulated the 99% infrastructure down scenario and the results US Internet is still working fine, and if someone know this report or publication please let me know the original source.
The Internet is very funny. It's both incredibly reliable with insane amount of redundancy and extremely easy to screw up. A single bad BGP config can shut down the internet for a whole country ...
well I doubt that if there a nuclear war the internet would safe because its run on electricity, power plant and grid require extensive maintenance and this is all hard even on normal day to day basis
It's a well known fact that after original Internet becoming very popular US military has their very own separated, isolated and operated military network based on the similar design of packet switching of the Internet for their own use cases. Since it's operated by military they can make the networks infrastructure military grade and make the power supply to be fully redundant, but then Cold War was turned into just propaganda machine so perhaps there is no real motivation to make it really reliable.
It's also a very common practices in many countries to have isolated and reliable nationwide network infrastructure for emergency usages for example disaster management purposes including military operations.
Power generation is relatively disributed today, with solar and wind. Big telecom infrastructure usually has backup power. And there's power-over-fiber as an alternative power grid for telecom(altough not sure how often used).
Taiwan is more scenic and safer than probably most of Brazil. The quality of life is probably only matched by some European cities with extra safety everywhere. Most Taïwanaise I have talked to are not that concerned with the prospect of war. Maybe some capitalists out there but most people are unaware of the geopolitics.
I'm glad that war is not really considered a large risk. I know some people from Taiwan, does seem like quite good quality of life! I didn't mention, but I think there are other important factors like the cultural importance given to (formal) education in those places (that might be broadly connected with strong will to develop economically?).
Safer I can totally agree with you but more scenic... I will absolutely completely disagree, just because Brazil is massive (larger than the continental US) and with a very varied geography. Taiwanese cities are more scenic but as a country I highly contest the comparison.
Israel is in a regional cold war with Iran. While Iran is certainly not a global super, it is a serious military force (which could plausibly become a nuclear power).
Further, resource constrained guerrilla/terrorist groups love valuable targets like a $25B factory that provides a critical input for a significant portion of the global economy.
If they were well-armed by the West, they'd be called a military.
> love valuable targets like a $25B factory
Until 7 Oct, Israel had proven more than capable of protecting its assets (at a cost). Since 7 Oct, it looks like they seek to do that once again (at a cost). I don't think megacorps are worried that much given none of the G7 really seems to care about those costs.
You should look into the recent wars in the middle east and earlier conflicts in South East Asia. You're highly underestimating the effectiveness of resource constrained insurgency.
There's actually an argument to be made that we wouldn't even be having this conversation unless the Viet Cong existed. The Internet and modern distributed networks are a direct consequence of western intervention in SEA and the creation of counter-insurgency.
You and others are making the same mistakes as the USSR and others have when countering Islamic Insurgency.The USSR's underestimation of Afghan fighters was their downfall, it's why they called Afghanistan the graveyard of empire, and I would not be surprised at all If we see Isreal meet a similar fate because of this exact same ignorance. In fact I'd bet my entire net worth that is the outcome based on what I see currently. The insane confidence, as displayed by your comment is a great summary of this type of ignorance.
Insurgencies have been squashed in recent past (without resorting to nuclear weapons). Search for the end of Tamil tigers in Sri Lanka, Russia crushing Islamists in Chechnya, China crushing Islamists in Xinxiang (or however it's spelled), China crushing the Tibetan insurgency, and currently, Israel almost crushing Hamas.
You cant beat an insurgency without local support. The Tamil Tigers are the most obvious case, but all the other ones you mentioned involved settling the disputed territory. Israel is nowhere close to squashing Hamas
The comment is likely being downvoted because it doesn’t seem like a response to its parent comment. The parent was saying that Israel is not facing a well-resourced military but a guerrilla group (Hamas). Its opponents don’t have things like nukes. The parent comment was not saying that Israel doesn’t have nukes. On the other hand, Taiwan is threatened by China (a nuclear power) and South Korea is threatened by North Korea (also a nuclear power).
South Korea and Taiwan are hell of a lot more stable than they were decades ago.
Taiwan has transitioned from an authoritarian regime under martial law (lifted in 1987) to a vibrant democracy. Regular, free elections have become a norm, and political power transitions smoothly.
Taiwan's economy has grown significantly, becoming one of the "Four Asian Tigers" with a strong technology sector. Companies like TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company) are global leaders.
Taiwan has seen advancements in social issues, such as becoming the first country in Asia to legalize same-sex marriage in 2019.
South Korea has also moved from a period of military dictatorship to a stable, democratic society with regular and peaceful elections.
South Korea has transformed from a war-torn country in the 1950s to one of the world's largest economies, excelling in technology, automotive, and other industries. It is home to major global brands like Samsung, Hyundai, and LG.
South Korea has made significant strides in education, healthcare, and quality of life. Its cultural exports, like K-pop and Korean dramas, have gained international popularity, enhancing its soft power.
How do their goverments being democratic have anything to do with their potential for invasion? Please go back in time and tell half of Europe this argument during WW2. This has nothing to do with the stability of their govt or society. It has a to do with their belligerent neighbors (and their own belligerent policies).
It feels like a cop-out to type this, but I think the unsatisfying-yet-obvious explanation is that capital follows capital, and at some point there was a compelling reason to put capital in all of those now-unstable places. Somebody at some time needed to build up industry in those places.
Taiwan and Korea built capable semiconductor fab ecosystems because of their countries’ economic development position, not despite their precarious political position.
People need to understand fabs are both skilled labor and automation intensive. Apart from that there are supplier ecosystems that only exist in those regions. Korea and Taiwan needed to have globalized export economies. Their education standards and culture are a good fit for scale manufacturing, both still had conscription military service. The labor at the time 80-90’s and currently is still highly competitive for their skilled labor force.
EU semiconductor is not a joke but the tools and wafer size are not state of art. I know EUV machine is a product of EU, but that moonshot tool is something that can only come out of a long dev government subsidized program like CERN and the bosson. They aren’t exporting that tool into the EU too it’s going right to Asia.
The EU is full of high living standards and well educated people but the semiconductor production is mainly serving local consumption (or local companies supply chains, automotive parts). EU does research but that doesn’t translate to at scale fabs.
EU gets protective and wants to secure local supply for their own tool vendors and needs to understand that smaller local machine brands cannot compete with the majors for the run of mill machines. EUV is a different story that thing is anomaly and power to them for following up on it.
Also strong labor organizations don’t attract capital. And semiconductor cannot take the month of August off.
US has capital and plenty of cheap land and cheap labor but still more expensive than Asia standards. Depending on state non existent labor protections and competitive environment permits. Not great education standards. Excellent skilled immigration. But still not leading in semi production especially with the old guard just keep losing. Still strong #2 though. And the ecosystem is nowhere near as integrated as Seoul. Like would you leave your hame family and friends in Oregon to startup a next gen Fab in Phoenix? No way. Geography isn’t doing US favors there for dynamism.
You say that but honestly given the salary gaps that we're seeing in US vs the rest of the world, somebody is one day going to make a good arbitrage play with "made in EU" prestige + a pretty understood process + low euro salaries + American disposable income.
South America has been promising for decades but it just keeps not fulfilling the expectations. I don't fully understand why, but I think it's not very business friendly (mostly controlled by left wing populists).
Meh, fabs in South Korea and Taiwan are funded and operated by domestic corporations. There's no international body assigning capitals according to a grand master plan, it's just South Korean and Taiwanese corporations' capital (which they attracted by being successful).
Your complaint is basically that some countries in potential conflict zones ended up being economically successful.
The intellectual capital in this countries just happens to be off the charts. It is probably, to a degree, related to the existential jeopardy those countries face.
I have never found a convincing explanation for this either. My hypothesis is that these are easier to control politically and do their "master's bidding" when needed (i.e. Geo-political reasons). Others who might turn out to be strategic Geo-political rivals are simply sidelined.
To me it looks like that the free world and its NIMBYism tends to shift physical fabrication jobs out towards its edges. I've heard that Silicon Valley actually made tons of silicons half a century ago. Japan made rather high-performance CPUs as recent as until 2000s-2010s. Now there are lots more in South Korea, Malaysia/Singapore, East coast Mainland China, and of course Taiwan. Maybe in a decade or two we'll hear about Tibet or Nepalese fabs expanding into Afghanistan or Iran, or maybe something different altogether might happen before that.
(btw, Intel actually has a lot of production capacity in the US[1]. The US don't need Taiwan and SK intact for bare minimum survival in an unlikely event of a global thermonuclear war)
In all those cases you probably had a lot of intellectuals driven there basically by communist or nazi militaries. Then if you're an Einstein type dropped in a refugee zone why not start a tech business? Or encourage the kids to.
It's not like Core arch was some radical new design. It's mostly just reverting to the evolution of PIII (which itself is mostly a minor evolution of the Pentium Pro).
Last line: "The $200 million facility was planned to include creature comforts such as outdoor sports fields, green areas, pop-up restaurants, and even a rooftop health center and spa. However, the project was later reimagined as a parking lot"
At such a big distance away yeah it's barely related.
On the other hand if they built something like that next to the fab I wouldn't call it a waste of money. It would be less than 1% of the budget to make things nicer for employees.
..."with the cash redirected to fuelling Intel's foundry push."
Good to see practical thinking overruling "designers" and their wankery. "Stop wasting money on useless crap and focus on your business" is advice that is rarely taken, unfortunately.
Intel is king of starting projects then killing them. Ask anyone who lived in Austin in the early '00s and remembers the "Intel shell", a half-built downtown office building that was eventually imploded. An aerial acrobatics company did put on some really good aerial silks performances there before it was imploded, so that was cool.
It's not just about killing projects. It's specifically about:
1. Getting loads of government incentives to build an office/factory in some locale.
2. Start the project, then when the winds change, leave it as a blight/eyesore for years without having any incentive to do anything about how you dropped a big turd in a community based on false promises.
I don't have a problem when companies change plans due to changing market conditions. I do have a problem when they don't clean up their messes in a timely manner.
Your first Google link seems very much in line with what I was talking about, specifically because of this line "but it may be pulling back from its biggest development yet — after razing small parts of San Jose to the ground."
Apple killing their car project does not, though, unless I missed something about them leaving half-built factories somewhere.
They also are just in a bad position to spend money right now. They’re worth so little compared to competitors like Nvidia. Talent has long since left, the x86 era is going away, and they aren’t competitive in any market really (mobile phones, laptops, data centers).
Things like fabs aren't something you just come up with an idea that you're going to build a new in a location and start it within weeks. It takes years to bring one online after how ever long it took to decide you want one, however long it takes to decide you will build one, however long it takes to decide where to build it, then building it, then getting it up and running.
Did they end up paying for the wasted capital allocation and the reduction in property values that came from the area having to stare at their empty building?
Seems crazy to me that they would do this over and over. Who's allowing projects to be green lit only to be killed after you've dumped a whole bunch of money into it.
I understand geopolitics can change things as Israel is in the hot seat right now, but doing it regularly seems wasteful.
Israel is pretty stable and has better life expectancy than the US. Thanks to its technology Israel can be at war and be mostly unscathed.
Intel has been building in Israel since the 70s and has huge infrastructure here. A lot of its most innovative work originates from Israel. This isn't unique, pretty much every global company has major R&D in Israel.
Chips come on wafers. Wafers come in lots. To miss a wafer is to deliver a wafer later than promised, delaying the lot. Intel Israel has never delivered a wafer late.
Would it matter? There's no response that will magically rebuild a fab overnight. Better to build it somewhere it's unlikely to be bombed in the first place.
The entire fertile crescent is a desert that is being reclaimed by the planet. I don't see how Israel is in any better of a position, there: despite old narratives to the contrary, desertification is not any less of a problem in Israel than in other deserts, and as global warming continues there is growing evidence that in fact anti-desertification efforts in Israel are backfiring. Given the political situation, it's more likely that desertification can be obviated for the purposes of a fab in an American desert than in really any other in the world.
In a way different than they are now? Or do you mean literally put troops on the ground there to protect an offshore branch of a US multinational corporation?
Drove through Be'er Sheva in 2019 while Hamas was sending rockets (earlier the same day I was there, not at exactly the same time) and would go back again without hesitation.
The tourism industry is effectively dead [1]. If your visit - even at the risk of losing a limb or death - can feed a single Israeli for a day, you must visit.
Israel is tiny. Tel Aviv which is "much" farther has also been hit by rockets from Gaza. The longest range rockets I believe are 155 miles (Ayyash 250) which can reach any point in Israel (and fly over Israel into Lebanon). From Gaza to the northernmost tip of Israel is 135 miles. Israel is long and narrow, this is the "long" part.
Your telling me the US destroyed its international reputation and credibility over a landmass the size of NJ? We really are living in the dumbest timeline.
Nor does the moral value of protecting a region hinge on its size. You'd think someone with an opinion on either side of the Israel/Palestine conflict would understand that.
Exactly. It's almost like our foreign policy has less to do with moral principles and more with picking and choosing where our 'values' apply based on convenience. Funny how that works out.
Taiwan and Ukraine are wedges against global US adversaries. An invasion of either one would threaten our influence in Europe or the Pacific. Israel isn't strategically important to us, and actually we'd have more control over the Middle East without prioritizing it, not that we have serious interest in the region to begin with.
And about Kuwait, remember why we built up their aggressor Saddam.
Not sure why Taiwan is that much of a wedge, or Ukraine for that matter. Ukraine used to be under effective Russian control anyways up to fairly recent times and Putin being pissed off about the change that's partly behind the war. Naturally now the stakes are higher given the price of the war on all sides. Re: Taiwan China is determined to get it one way or another and it's going to be hard for the US to keep resisting that.
Support of Israel goes back to JFK.
It used to be strategically important during the cold war when the US and the Soviet Union were fighting for influence. Egypt and Syria e.g. were aligned with the soviets. Israel as one example, was testing ground for western weapons against soviet weapons. The US got a lot of information out of Israel about those weapons and how to defeat them.
Weapon technology is still something important today. Israel and the US collaborate on anti-missile systems and share the testing results those systems are getting in the field. That's just one example. Americans follow Israel's tunnel fighting tactics as well. Israel has always had more human intelligence in the area and also shares that with the US.
The middle east is still important today. I guess there's oil. And as we can see shipping. Saudi Arabia that used to align with American interests has been looking in other places, has always been a somewhat questionably ally, and the stability of its regime is always a question. Egypt has been sort trending a little back to Russia but for the time being put in place. It's also not the stablest place given the Muslim Brotherhood had control and the army took over. Turkey is also becoming less US oriented. And that's practically Europe.
The US under Obama has tried to reduce its involvement in the region which indirectly led to the civil war in Syria, to Iraq aligning with Iran, and other movements. Bin Laden was from the region and so is/was ISIS/ISIL. It feels like the US "disconnecting" from the region would be a destabilizing move felt everywhere and other parties like China or Russia would fill in the vacuum.
Study some geography. The US is blessed with wide open coastal access to, not one, but two oceans, with innumerable natural harbors on each coast (Chesapeake Bay, the San Francisco Bay Area, Puget Sound, Port of NY&NJ, Port of Los Angeles, etc. etc. etc.). The US has more and better natural harbors than all of Africa. We tend to take this for granted, and forget that other countries are severely limited in comparison. These limitations are exploitable.
Russia needs Crimea because without it they have very limited access to the Black Sea, and by extension the Mediterranean and the Atlantic; their other coasts, on the Baltic and in East Asia, are not adequate substitutes. The Baltic ports in particular tend to freeze in the winter -- not good if you have global superpower aspirations.
In the case of Taiwan, look at a map of China. Although China is comparable in land mass to the US, their sea access is limited to an eastern coast enclosed almost entirely by the South China Sea / East China Sea. Look at all the countries on the other side of the Chinese coast: Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines, Japan, South Korea, and of course Taiwan. The US has military and naval bases in most of them. In the case of Philippines, Japan, and South Korea, the US has a LOT of naval bases, notably in Okinawa, halfway between Japan and Taiwan. This is no accident. In the event of conflict, the US could easily blockade China. A quick glance at the map shows how critical Taiwan is to this calculation. If the US controls Taiwan, it owns a huge island (a.k.a. unsinkable aircraft carrier) staring down the middle of the Chinese coast. If China owns Taiwan, the east coast of Taiwan has direct access to the rest of the Pacific.
US geography is so OP that we don't realize how bad other countries have it.
(By the way, the other countries mentioned are also geographically strategic assets. Kuwait has 10 times more coastline than Iraq. Without Kuwait, Iraq has only a few ports available to ship out their oil, and no other ocean access anywhere. Israel also controls a huge chunk of the Middle East's Mediterranean coastline.)
Russia doesn't need to have territorial sovereignty over the Crimea.
The ideologues currently running Russia desire to have the Crimea for its symbolic significance -- as a means of projecting power, and of thumbing its nose at the West. And for their various internal narratives (Наш Крым and all that). Which gets a lot closer to the core issue of what the war is actually about.
It was never about Russia "needing" the Crimea in any meaningful sense. Any more than WW II was about Germany "needing" to annex the Danzig Corridor.
To the contrary, Russia does need Crimea, although military naval ports is not the main reason why. Crimean waters contain huge natural gas and oil deposits. If Ukraine were left to develop Crimea unhindered, it would overturn Russia's gas monopoly in Europe, which is practically their only source of cash. The same motive lies behind Russia's interference in Eastern Ukraine -- therein lies the rest of Ukraine's fossil fuel resources.
Russia does not actually need to extract oil and gas from Crimea, although it would be a nice bonus for them if they could. The main imperative is to prevent Ukraine from having it.
Once Russia captured Crimea, the "land corridor" to Crimea became a necessary next domino. Crimea's only source of fresh water is overland via Ukraine. Obviously the first thing Ukraine did when Russia annexed Crimea was turn off the taps. (Would you keep sending freshwater into enemy territory?) In order to maintain power in Crimea in the long run, it is necessary for Russia to invade enough of Ukraine to take over the freshwater canals that supply Crimea.
Not sure what to make of an analysis that amounts to: "To the contrary, Russia does need the Crimea, because natural gas reverses. Although it actually does not need to extract them, it would just be a nice bonus of they could." In any case we're talking about an augmentation of some 180 bcm in the offshore regions of the Crimea it is claiming, on top of Russia's proven reserves of some 40000-50000 depending on whom you ask.
So no, Russia doesn't need the Crimea's resources either. It is however definitely very hurtful to Ukraine to not have access to those resources -- which speaks more to the true intent behind the annexation move.
It is necessary for Russia to invade ...
It isn't necessary for Russia to do anything at this point -- other than pick up its toys and go home.
Gas isn't easily shippable like oil. Most of Russia's gas is in Siberia, inaccessible for purposes of shipping to Europe. Ukraine holds the only other gas reserves in Europe other than Russia. Gas supply is inelastic, meaning that even minor competition can lead to a big drop in prices. So yes, Russia "needs" to keep Ukraine out of the European gas market.
Yes, there's an incremental point to be made about the location of the gas reserves.
But to get to the real point here - why do you keep defending the actions of a blatant 19th century-style imperialist bully, as if it's some kind of calm, rational actor?
Then you could perhaps be more precise in your choice of actors here:
In particular -- Russia most certainly does not "need" to dominate its neighbors. It's just what the current regime feels it needs to do to maintain its chances of survival.
You're deeply misreading the English language. When I say "I need my phone" I am obviously not claiming that my phone is necessary for basic survival. There are different levels of need, and there exists a level where Russia (believes it) needs Crimea.
In the case of the United States, it's not appropriate to equate the country with the current regime, since the party in power (Democrat / Republican) changes every few years, and although you may disagree, I do not view the two parties as equivalent or as forming one party.
In the case of Russia, it is completely appropriate to refer to the regime by country name, since Putin has been in power forever.
Anyway, this is a useless tangent. It should by now be clear to you and anyone else reading what I mean, even if it was not initially clear.
Russia also has Novorossiysk on the black sea which is a bigger port than Sevastopol anyway. Putin had planned to move the black sea HQ there but then got a leasing arrangement with Ukraine. Was apparently still too expensive though.
>Not sure why Taiwan is that much of a wedge, or Ukraine for that matter. Ukraine used to be under effective Russian control anyways up to fairly recent times and Putin being pissed off about the change that's partly behind the war. Naturally now the stakes are higher given the price of the war on all sides. Re: Taiwan China is determined to get it one way or another and it's going to be hard for the US to keep resisting that.
I could understand Ukraine being more of an issue for Europe rather than the US but Taiwan? Without them the hottest sector in the US collapses. In fact, how much of the US current meteoric rise is due to tech vs the rest of the economy? Probably a decent chunk. Taiwan is holding some of the most important "cards" in the world.
>Support of Israel goes back to JFK.
Well you could make the argument that the US has been wrong since JFK and it is finally catching up to them. Its not the first time they have supported a state that is in direct contrast to its stated ideals.
>The US under Obama has tried to reduce its involvement in the region which indirectly led to the civil war in Syria, to Iraq aligning with Iran, and other movements. Bin Laden was from the region and so is/was ISIS/ISIL. It feels like the US "disconnecting" from the region would be a destabilizing move felt everywhere and other parties like China or Russia would fill in the vacuum.
Like it or not that has been the stated path of the US for two administrations now and will likely continue into the next one regardless of who is elected.
I'm not saying the US should disconnect, but our obedience to Israel isn't doing us favors. Obama's nuclear deal with Iran is the one counterexample I can think of, and it ended.
Syrian Civil War started only 3 years after Obama took office, and I don't see any connection to Obama reducing our involvement, if that's what he did. The US funded Syrian rebel groups both secretly before the war (leaked later) and openly afterwards (the FSA), though this stopped when ISIS formed and they began defecting, then we built that coalition to defeat them.
Btw, Israel has never fought ISIS. We fought a war against the largest terrorist group in history almost adjacent to our supposed weapons-testing, anti-terrorism ally without them being involved.
Besides with the attacks happening right now on commercial ships in Gulf of Aden. It could become very expensive to bring anything out from these fabs or providing raw material
If you are considering investing tens of billions into infrastructure for manufacturing in a country, it seems like a business risk to choose a country that is currently facing genocide charges in the ICC and UN.
And before you brigade me, I'm making no comments about the validity of those charges either way. I'm saying it's an obvious increased risk as an investor. It's possible that Israel becomes subject to sanctions or subject to increased international scrutiny or gets embroiled in regional conflict.
Those seem like business risks that might change the calculus.
Intel has had development centers in Israel for a long time; people with computer architecture backgrounds might remember that the Pentium M, which evolved into their Core line of CPUs, was designed at their Haifa facility. It saved Intel's bacon when their Pentium 4 architecture started running out of steam relative to their competitors.
Money is certainly part of it, the Israeli government tends to subsidize these sorts of initiatives. Costs would typically be lower vs. other options like Japan, Germany or the USA even without those subsidies.
Israel has a long history of semiconductor expertise. From Intel's first R&D office outside the US in 1974 to many others. Mellanox, Tower Semiconductors etc. There's a lot of know-how and expertise and Israel would typically be considered one of the top 10 (if not higher) countries in the world in this area.
Israel has incredible tech talent in general but especially in semiconductor design. For example, Amazon’s chips are designed by a company they acquired in Israel (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annapurna_Labs). I’m not sure what the causes are, but Israel has a lot of talent and an entrepreneurial culture that’s bigger than its size implies.
> The rate of civilians and combatants dead is lower than the average of urban wars
You're talking proudly as if killing tens of thousands of civilians (most of which are children) is "a quota" you need hit.
> Israel seeks to minimize collateral damage to Palestinian victims
Where's the evidence? Please don't say something atrocious like "We could've killed more than 35,000 civilians if we wanted. This is just a taste". We've seen you bombing aid workers, ambulances, and international medics. Remember the World Central Kitchen aid convoy attack?
If your objective is truly to destroy the terrorists and you wish no harm to the innocent civilians. Why don't you take the civilians as refugees instead of bombing them and pushing them out of their land to other countries?
We've seen the blockade. We've seen the illegal settlements and kicking people of their homes and land. We've seen babies dying of malnutrition. We've seen how you treat the innocent civilians outside and long before this war. Are you going to say "Look at the US, our killing of aboriginals and taking over their land is on average with other colonial powers so that makes it ok"?
Isn't it weird how you claim you "didn't mean it" but at the same time you never actually express any empathy or condolences to the tens of thousands of victims and their families?
Israel claims the UNRWA is not counting aid trucks going into Gaza from Israel resulting in a significant undercount of aid provided to Palestinian civilians during the war.
"The lie behind claims Israel is 'starving Gaza': UN data on Israeli aid to strip is unreliable"
Israeli perspective for sure.
Another by the way is there are active cases against the Israel government before the Israeli Supereme court on this matter.
Yet another by the way is that it's worth mentioning Egypt refused to let aid through the Rafah border crossing once Israel took the Palestinian side of it just because it refused to deal with Israel on this matter.
The link works for me. Maybe something with your browser?
I'll copy paste the beginning:
"Israeli officials from the Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), led by Maj. Gen. Ghasan Alyan, present the extent of aid being delivered to the Gaza Strip in daily reports distributed to government offices and other bodies around the world. "
"According to findings presented by UNRWA and the UN, the amount of aid counted by the organizations since the outbreak of the war and until June 5 totals 26,684 aid trucks entering Gaza. COGAT's records show 34,199 trucks.
An in-depth investigation conducted by the COGAT's Humanitarian Information Center, headed by Lt. Col. (res.) Or Elrom, reveals the reasons behind the data discrepancies and significant differences regarding the extent of aid entering Gaza."
We're not going to be able to litigate this here. Israel's position is more or less that UNRWA is collaborating with Hamas to the point of active participation in the Oct 7th attacks. I think what is worth saying though is there are at least two versions of the story about how much aid is going into Gaza. It's also worth saying (EDIT: some of) the Israeli disclosures are part of a Supreme Court hearing into this so if someone in Israel is lying they're doing that under risk of perjury. The US is also keeping a close eye on Israel's promise to get more aid into Gaza.
EDIT: btw the original comments are now dead which is probably the right way for this thread to go.
>Yet another by the way is that it's worth mentioning Egypt refused to let aid through the Rafah border crossing once Israel took the Palestinian side of it just because it refused to deal with Israel on this matter.
Has the current Regime cooperated with any country or organisation in a truthful and transparent manner? Besides Gaza is on the Mediterranean coast, with a port that is much older than the State of Israel. It didn't need anyone else's support, if there was not a complete blockade for two decades. Even in raging war, humanitarian assistance has been delivered in geographical points that are hard to reach.
